I am Vanessa

I am Vanessa, an occupational therapist and autism coach at Kids&Zoo in Waregem.

I have been working as an occupational therapist since 2017, with a particular passion for guiding children with autism.

Working with children — and especially with children who need that extra push — is my greatest driving force. Even during my internships, I felt that autism was the target group I wanted to specialize in. I continue to do so: through ongoing training and by learning from practice.

My career began in special education, where I soon discovered that in practice, autism is so much broader and more complex than what I had learned in theory.

Through working daily with children with behavioral and emotional disorders, autism, and intellectual disabilities, my insight grew, as did my desire to understand and support them even better.

After that, I worked for five years at the Sint-Lievenspoort Ambulatory Rehabilitation Center, where I was able to further expand my expertise. In September 2024, I decided to focus entirely on Kids&Zoo, where I can work more closely with the whole family and context.

In my daily work, I primarily support children with autism and their families. I do this through parent guidance and individual therapy with the children. Together, we look for ways to create more calm, for both the child and the family.

Every child is different, but one major challenge recurs time and again: the need for structure and predictability. Therefore, I often advise visualizing in the home context using daily or weekly overviews, photos, pictograms, or visual timers. What works best depends on the child's level of understanding and the family context.

Parents usually get started with this enthusiastically, but it requires a lot of time and energy — precisely what is often scarce when behavioral difficulties and concerns are already at play. Over time, I notice that the visualization fades, simply because it is too difficult to sustain.

For quite some time, I have been looking for ways to make visualization simpler, but I kept running into the same limitations. You can create or purchase a set of icons, but sooner or later something is always missing, or the diagram is already outdated. Despite all those efforts, the unease sometimes remains, resulting in frustration or anger.

Thus the question arose: why does this not exist digitally?

With Pandaplan, we want to offer families exactly that support: accessible, efficient, and tailored, so that parents no longer have to waste their energy on cut-and-paste work. This allows them to focus on what really matters: peace and connection within the family.

As an autism coach, I am ready to help you think about how best to guide and support your child.

In this story, I look together with you at how best to approach visualization; at what level of understanding, exactly what you visualize, and how much.

Everything fully tailored to your unique situation.